BBQ'd Butterfly Chicken

   I borrowed a Better Homes and Gardens magazine from the library earlier this summer, and it had in it a recipe for a whole butterflied chicken. This may sounds coo-coo, but I had never heard of butterflying a whole chicken before!! 
   Anyway, butterflying a chicken allows you to cook a whole chicken in a fraction of the time roasting it would take. If you're not too squirmish about cutting up a whole chicken, then forge on! The results are wonderful, and you'll be glad you tried it! What butterflying does is that it exposes the legs and thighs more directly to the heat. With a whole chicken, the thigh joints are underneath the chicken's back, insulated by plenty of fat and bone. They take a long time to cook. By the time they are fully cooked (technically 165 to 170°F), the chicken breasts are dry and overdone. Blah.
   I got more detailed instructions on butterflying a chicken from Rachel Ray, so click there for a minute to get the how-to (I don't own kitchen shears, so I just used a serrated {bread| knife to cut).

BBQ'd Butterfly Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1 whole butterflied chicken, skin patted dry with paper towel (or a clean kitchen towel. Be sure to put that towel right into the laundry!)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Paprika (enough to rub onto the chicken)

Optional BBQ sauce to baste on the chicken as it cooks, or to use as a dipping sauce after:

• 1 Tbsp Franks Original Hot Sauce
• 2 Tbsp musard (I used regular yellow mustard)
• 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• Pinch of chill flakes

Method:

1. Pre-heat bbq to medium heat
2. Rub the paprika onto the butterflied and patted dry chicken. Season with salt and pepper
3. Scrub the bbq grates clean with a bbq brush, or a wad of aluminum foil (hold the aluminum foil at the end of tongs so you don't burn your hand!). 
4. Grease the grill by putting some olive oil onto a paper towel or newspaper, then hold the oiled paper in BBQ tongs, and grease the clean grill
5. Carefully lift the butterflied chicken onto the grill, skin side up.
6. Leave on the grill, skin side up, for about 20-30 minutes (with the lid closed), until the skin is looking crispy, and the fat has been almost entirely rendered (if you have a meat thermometer, you're looking for about 165 degrees or more). You can brush on the homemade bbq sauce, or a store bought kind, during this bbq-ing time (around the 10 minute mark), or you can save it to eat with the chicken after.
7. Then carefully flip the chicken over (I accomplish this by using 2 pancake flippers {I'm not really sure what their real name is!?|)
8. Allow the chicken to sit on the grill for about 5 minutes to get some nice grill marks on the skin.
9. Then, turn off the bbq, and leave the chicken resting in there for 5 minutes or so (with the lid closed). Remove chicken from the bbq onto a platter or large plate.
10. Cut up and serve! 

   This is a seriously quick and easy way to get a whole chicken cooked up! You will be hooked! 

   Also, in case you follow my blog everyday, you can see I've strayed from my usual every day post. I am trying to just let this summer happen, and get some blog work in where I can. This is actually a little difficult for me, as I like order, and predictability, and this whole, "I'll post when I can" messes with that! 
    So, you'll see me here and there for the rest of the summer-I may be sporadic, but I am still here! Sign up for my RSS feed (up there on the right), and that'll tell you when I've posted. Or, if you're a Pinterest-er, you can follow me on Pinterest and you'll see when I've pinned new posts from this here blogaroo. 
   Last, but not least, I was in the London area over the weekend for a wedding, and didn't realize they had a super hero! His name is Captain Obvious! We saw his handy work up close in the form of a sign that he put up to save idiotic and unobservant pedestrians from continuing to walk, even though the side walk had ended!!! That would have been bad.....it's so good he got that sign up and saved who knows how many pedestrians from not realizing the sidewalk had ended and walking on grass! Phew! So, as a side note, are the people walking on that particular sidewalk supposed to turn around and go back where they came from, or is it possible to walk on the grass? :)  
   Alright, I realize it may be more for people in motorized wheelchairs or people walking with strollers, but don't you think they would have wanted to know before they got all that way? Just sayin'.  

Captain Obvious saves the day!!!